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Grand Designs Australia S12E04

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00:00It's a pretty brash skyline. All those towers trying to outdo one another. Sydney's CBD of
00:13course is a super competitive built environment. You might think getting a glass and steel building
00:19up there would be an architect's toughest and most rewarding gig. Well, maybe. Unless your
00:26next assignment is transforming your childhood home into a futuristic steel and glass forever
00:32house. And your mum's watching.
00:56So that boat over there, the hood on it, is about the size of boat that we used to have.
01:10Ed Lipman is Sydney, through and through. He used to go in gale winds and thrash it, absolutely
01:17thrash it. Everyone loves this great city. It is beautiful by world standards and there's
01:23an energy in Sydney which is unique to Sydney. And I think that energy is a gregariousness.
01:32Ed is one of Australia's most acclaimed and accomplished architects. And his home city is his major canvas.
01:40I've designed and built a range of buildings. Eight Chifley Square, which is a premium grade
01:47commercial high-rise tower. The Andrew Boyd Charlton pool. King George V Recreation Centre in the Rocks.
01:56Residential buildings like the Butterfly House.
01:59Butterfly House is a jaw-dropping masterwork high on an eastern suburbs hill with dramatic views of the harbour and headquarters.
02:08The Butterfly House was a unique project. I didn't think it was real. The client's requirement was for a house with no straight lines.
02:16It kind of evolved from this Feng Shui requirement of no trapped energy, no chi.
02:23So very soon after the first sketch was done, he said, OK, let's start this. How much is it going to cost?
02:31I had no idea. But it just, it became a building. And, you know, I put a lot of time and effort into it.
02:37I'm proud of it. But it's an unusual building, for sure.
02:41With its unconventional lines and look-at-me location, Butterfly House caused a stir.
02:47Was it too gregarious for its genteel surrounds?
02:51Now, 20 years on, it looks at ease in what's become a trophy home neighbourhood.
02:56Ed's childhood domain, Dover Heights.
03:00In the early 60s, it wasn't as dense as it is now.
03:03The guy next door had a goat.
03:06And there was another resident who had a pet kangaroo in the front garden.
03:10So it wasn't like it is now.
03:13Wall-to-wall buildings and apartment blocks.
03:16Have a look at this.
03:18Oh, my God.
03:20Oh, what is this?
03:21Dover in the 70s.
03:22OK, I don't recognise the view.
03:24I think that was after it was built.
03:26OK.
03:27Ed's Spanish-born wife, Sonia, is also an accomplished architect.
03:31And that's your pretty mum.
03:34She looks fantastic in these photos.
03:36We are a blended family.
03:38This is the second marriage for us, and we have five children together.
03:42Not together.
03:43Ed has three, Ryu, Eve and Mitch.
03:45And I have my twin daughters, Anuk and Marley.
03:48Which brings us to Ed's most personal and arguably his most challenging project to date,
03:54given the history preceding it and high emotion surrounding it.
03:58He's creating a new home on hallowed ground.
04:02The scene of his own childhood.
04:04An unmistakable Lippmann work rising from foundational elements of the house his immigrant parents bought and renovated more than 60 years ago.
04:14The original building was in the 20s.
04:16My parents transformed it in the 1960s.
04:19And we're transforming it again in the 21st century.
04:22Transforming's a bit of an understatement.
04:25Demolition and preparatory work is already underway where the relatively humble family home held its grandstand location.
04:33With Sonia at his side, Ed's planning a soulful structure in signature steel and glass.
04:39Let's build what we need, let's build what is sustainable, let's build what is friendly with the environment, with the context, with the culture.
04:47And that has a meaning for us.
04:49The pressure is, how good will it be as a piece of architecture?
04:55It would be highly embarrassing for me and for Sonia if we can't do this well.
05:01We don't have a client to blame.
05:03So, you know, if we can't do something outstanding.
05:07It's like a tailor wearing a bad outfit.
05:10We can do this, Ed is a good architect.
05:12But also, I think he's specialised in difficult things, problematic projects and that's where he excels.
05:21And I'm an architect as well and I'm quite a perfectionist.
05:24She's the perfectionist, not me.
05:26Truth is, they're both perfectionists.
05:29So the road ahead is going to be tricky.
05:31Maybe even testy.
05:33A little like the trail to the site itself.
05:37It's a landlocked block midway up the Dover Heights foothills with dozens and dozens of steps all the way to the front gate.
05:44Getting here's a hike, getting steel and glass building components here is surely going to be an ordeal.
05:52This has got to be it.
05:54There they are.
05:56Hello.
05:57Bienvenido.
05:58Thank you very much.
05:59Nice to see you.
06:00Lovely to see you too, Ed.
06:01That's Spanish for welcome.
06:03I feel very welcomed.
06:04And wow, this has got to be one of the best views in Sydney.
06:07You've got the skyline, the bridge, the harbour's twinkling away over there, the ferries.
06:11The ferry, we can see the ferries coming into Rose Bay.
06:14Oh, what a canvas.
06:16You know, this is such a pleasure to be building in a place like this.
06:18It is.
06:19But you are completely bounded here.
06:22You don't have a carport, a driveway.
06:24You've got a public right of way access down here.
06:27Just getting materials in here is going to be its own sort of superhuman feat.
06:32This early demolition stage is being done manually because it's cheaper.
06:37There's a lot of surgery.
06:38Mm-hm.
06:39We're keeping bits of it, but we're adding the next layer.
06:43Okay.
06:44It's really very much about sustainability.
06:46So what we can keep, we keep.
06:48Yeah.
06:49Most of the house will be built in a workshop.
06:52Yep.
06:53And lifted into place by crane.
06:54But we're not landing, you know, a UFO on a flat land.
06:58Yeah.
06:59This, we are adapting to a very quirky landscape.
07:04That clean, glassy architecture needs to come down to earth and adapt to reality.
07:10The original bungalow, built about a hundred years ago, made little of its position.
07:17But the makeover by Ed's mum and dad in the 1960s gave it a practical layout of four bedrooms
07:23and two bathrooms, and opened the outlook westward onto that harbour view.
07:28Ed and Sonya aim to make that panorama the out-and-out big screen superstar.
07:33Some rudimentary structural elements of the original home will stay and provide a kind
07:39of DNA connection to what was.
07:42Roots for the new home?
07:43A composition of hundreds of hefty steel beams and struts and dozens of panels of made-to-measure
07:49glass.
07:50Living areas will revel in the outlook.
07:53An open-plan kitchen, dining room and lounge room under a vaulted ceiling behind a towering,
07:59west-facing window wall.
08:02There'll be a study-cum-dressing room space in the master bedroom and just two other bedrooms,
08:07along with two bathrooms in this single-level layout.
08:11A gregarious developer might have built an impersonal, multi-storey palace.
08:17Ed and Sonya's home will be entirely personal, relatively modest in scale, environmentally conscious
08:23in nature, but nevertheless striking to look at and stunning to look from.
08:30There's a level of humanity to all this.
08:32It's not a building that is going to be perfect and, you know, creating this object.
08:39The people who live in it need to feel comfortable.
08:41They're the priority.
08:42What we need is a house for us to live in and we're doing what I hope will be a beautiful,
08:49modest house surrounded by a wonderful landscape.
08:52Fantastic.
08:53So this is 40 years of your practice and experience distilled into a small single-storey home that actually was your family's anyway.
09:01And the main value for us is that we like it, we're comfortable and it's not a burden to manage or to clean or to maintain.
09:08Yeah.
09:09It feels like we are growing a shell together.
09:11Okay.
09:12We're doing it organically.
09:13I don't know how to best describe it.
09:15It's just like it's growing around us.
09:17Yeah.
09:18How long are we going to be building this for?
09:20About eight months.
09:21Eight months?
09:22Yep.
09:23It shouldn't take...
09:24Normally at this point I'd go, what?
09:26But you know what you're talking about.
09:27So I'm going to say, oh, eight months?
09:29All right.
09:30Well that's very ambitious though.
09:31It's ambitious.
09:32Yeah.
09:33But because we're building the bones in a factory, we're not delayed by wet weather.
09:36Sure.
09:37It's just a question of sequencing things.
09:39Yeah.
09:40How much money is this going to cost you?
09:44About one and a half million dollars.
09:46Okay.
09:47Okay.
09:48Even with all the lifting and the logistics and all that.
09:50Yeah.
09:51Yeah, great.
09:52I think what you've outlined here is an amazing project with a great story actually.
09:56Everything that you've spoken about is not an architectural project which is a hero.
10:00It's a sentimental next step in your lives.
10:03Yeah.
10:04It's linking to your family.
10:05It's your new family and your future together.
10:07It's a beautiful picture.
10:08Yeah.
10:09I can't wait to see where this kind of goes.
10:10We're looking forward to start our lives.
10:12Yeah?
10:13Yeah.
10:14This seems like it's going to turn the volume up to 11 on challenges from my point of view.
10:18So I'm looking forward to seeing your solutions to those problems.
10:21We'll see.
10:22Yeah.
10:23It might have been simpler, far more lucrative, to build a snazzy palace in this amazing location.
10:31But I love the fact that Ed and Sonya have chosen the tougher, more challenging route.
10:36A bit like the trail up to the site itself.
10:38But it's Ed Lipman.
10:39So you'd expect him to be pushing the envelope of steel and glass and unorthodox methods of
10:45building.
10:46It's what's made him such a distinctive figure in Australian architecture.
10:49But has he made it a mission impossible?
10:52He wants to honour the family legacy.
10:55Please himself.
10:56Please Sonya.
10:57Please the kids.
10:58And create a piece of art.
11:00Really.
11:01Up here.
11:02On this vaulted stage.
11:03For everyone to see.
11:17Thanks for coming in mate.
11:18We'll need to discuss a couple of things.
11:20Ed's long been a champion of prefabrication as a practical, sensible, time and labour saving
11:26building technique.
11:27Here's your structure.
11:28873 pieces of steel, creating 62 assembled elements that we need to install up on that
11:37higher level.
11:38And with specialist steel fabricator Mark, he's been busily configuring each and every piece
11:43of the steel skeleton set for the Dover Heights area.
11:47There's a lot that can go wrong.
11:49We spent a lot of time at the design stage, modelling the structure, the steel work, the
11:55detail.
11:56Checking that the pieces fit.
11:57It's all going to go together.
11:59So we're talking millimetres.
12:00And I want to make sure that before it all comes to site, it's correct, the pieces fit
12:06together.
12:07The time spent now is crucial to making sure that we don't have problems on site.
12:14It's a lot more intense than your standard structural jobs.
12:17Ed's project is comprised of 10,136 kilos of steel.
12:23The heaviest piece has been a 600 kilo architectural platework awning.
12:29In real life, this 600 kilos is going to be required to be put at a six degree tilt.
12:35Okay, that's a picture of your roof.
12:37This needs to be done on the ground with the crane.
12:39It can't be done in the air, so we're going to have to pitch it at six degrees, make sure
12:43it's rotated right.
12:44When she flies in and lands, it has to find all the points of contact at once.
12:49It's got to find them all at exactly the same time when the crane's lowered.
12:52That's going to be a tricky one to get up there, but, you know, 600 kilos, it's not too bad.
12:59You get a 90 ton crane and it lifts it.
13:04Within this supersized Meccano set are 14 metre steel beams, too long for practical
13:10transportation.
13:11So, they've been halved for the truck and crane and they'll be reconstructed on site.
13:16But, even when the fabrication process is micro precise, there are distortions that can still occur.
13:23It goes from here to a galvaniser somewhere else and it gets dropped into a very hot bath
13:30of zinc.
13:31That can distort the steel, it can twist the steel, it can be damaged in transport.
13:35So, until it's actually in position, we can't know for sure that it's going to turn out
13:43a perfect job.
13:45Getting the hefty assortment of steel, ten tonnes of it, up and over power lines and
13:54neighbours' roofs and into place will be a delicate, perilous dance of trucks and cranes
14:00and wires and personnel.
14:02Steel Foreman Mick will choreograph the show.
14:05A very unusual sight.
14:07I thought I actually had the wrong address because when I pulled up there was no front gate,
14:12no garage, no car access.
14:13Like, where do these people get into their home?
14:16But it was actually up a, I think I counted 58 stairs the day I was here, carrying bits
14:21and pieces up here.
14:22So, yeah, very tricky one.
14:23Very tricky.
14:24Need to be fit.
14:25Need to be fit for this.
14:26Mountain goat material.
14:27Fixing everything neatly and snugly into place is another dance altogether.
14:34The prefabricated steel will need to fit precisely into preordained anchor points here.
14:40Builder Sam knows accuracy is vital.
14:43If one of the components is wrong or is not fitting, that's going to be a worry.
14:49But, look, concerns and challenges and risks are always there, no matter what.
14:53That's always the case.
14:54You know, nothing goes smoothly.
14:56Nothing goes easily.
14:58But, look, if there is a will, there is a way.
15:01It has to happen.
15:03The epic framework for the new house is just days away.
15:11So, there's a flurry of checking and double checking.
15:14But this project isn't just about steel bones.
15:17It's also about heart and soul.
15:20And today, Ed and Sonia welcome a special guest with a special assignment.
15:25So, this is the living room and I think this is the space for your work.
15:30I think so.
15:31Their friend, Lynn Utzon, knows all about ambitious, complicated houses.
15:37Her dad, Jorn, designed a very ambitious and complicated one himself.
15:43I really love that kind of work.
15:45Wow.
15:46It doesn't faze me.
15:48Ed and Sonia have asked this renowned designer and artist
15:52to create a signature piece for their home.
15:55With the lacquer, I would paint it a few times.
15:59I like it to be very graphic, very flat, colour-nosed, sort of brushstroke.
16:05And I'd paint it a couple of times.
16:07And how high will this, will it go all the way up?
16:15Only to there.
16:17Lynn's a great artist.
16:18Most people know about her father, Jorn Utzon, who designed the Sydney Opera House.
16:22She is an artist in her own right, but the important thing about her coming here is that she needed to understand the context of the artwork.
16:30And I love that height of the room.
16:35I think that's beautiful.
16:36I love the high ceiling.
16:37She does sculptural things.
16:39She does murals and ceramics.
16:41She does tapestries.
16:42So we didn't know exactly what we were commissioning.
16:47She's cut with the idea of a painted, lacquered panel.
16:51She talked about wood and she mentioned lacquer.
16:55It sounds fantastic already.
16:57And it will have the beautiful light coming in on it.
17:01And you would be welcomed by it when you enter onto it.
17:16Sydney breaks overcast for the first big day of heavy metal action.
17:21A steely grey backdrop for the tons of components about to take flight.
17:26Today is a cool day.
17:27No rain.
17:28We don't want any rain.
17:29A lot of this steel is within metres of live power.
17:32We're going over tiger tail power lines.
17:34We've got a lot of neighbours, walkways, pedestrians, moving parts, cars and all that around us.
17:41So we need to be vigilant and safe with that.
17:43It's all crane work, but it's very dangerous work.
17:47Dangerous work makes for a thrilling show with a very invested audience.
17:52I'm Tony and my wife and I live next door to Ed.
17:55And we're a little bit, how shall I say, a little bit concerned about the lift going on today.
18:00We can see the crane.
18:01We can see the amount of steel that's going to be lifted over our house.
18:05It's a high stakes drama with a huge cast of extras and a core of central players.
18:11There's crane driver Graham.
18:13Ready for it.
18:14The crew's done a great job this morning though, definitely setting up already.
18:19So fingers crossed, everything goes to plan and we get into it.
18:21Well the columns have come in there, they should miss, hopefully miss it when they come in underneath there.
18:28It's the power lines that present the biggest risk and that means a tense day for spotter Georgia in charge of electrical awareness.
18:50There is a lot of danger involved.
18:52If one of the steels or the crane or the boom gets in contact with the power lines, electrical damage can happen, shock can happen.
19:02It can shut down power throughout the whole entire street.
19:05It can shut down the job, everything.
19:11You're pretty well clear there bro, rip it up.
19:18Jibbing hook it up bro, another tree lefty.
19:22Jibbing hook.
19:23Dog man Aidan is Graham's eyes and ears on the ground.
19:26Easing up your slew somewhere there mate.
19:28Jibbing and hooking only.
19:29We've got trees on the perimeter of the job where we need to land steel and we've also got trees out the front where we're landing steel just to unload.
19:39We don't have much room out there and it's causing a bit of havoc.
19:46Just pull out there bro.
19:47We're just in the tree a little bit, keep coming hook.
19:50Ed's watched his commissioned buildings rise to great heights and great acclaim.
19:55But when it's your own home, your own money and your own long-standing neighbourhood, the pressure's a little more intense.
20:03There are plenty of challenges here.
20:05The steel work has been fabricated to high degree tolerances.
20:08We're talking one or two millimetres.
20:11I've done my meditation practice this morning so I'm nice and calm.
20:15We've made arrangements with the local council to close the street for three days.
20:19We've got the crane for three days if we need it.
20:21That's the one?
20:22That's the one?
20:23That's the one-by-one?
20:24Yep.
20:25Perfect.
20:26My main issue is to get it right.
20:27Look at that.
20:28T-t-t-t-t-t.
20:29Coming down.
20:35Pull it in, pull it in.
20:36Yeah, all right.
20:37Hook it down again.
20:44That'll do it.
20:45First steel column in, bolted down.
20:58Fantastic.
21:00But that's one of 873 pieces in the set.
21:05There's plenty of work to do.
21:06The cranes are monster and it needs to be.
21:15Here comes that 600 kilo tapered awning that demanded its own choreography plan back at the fabricators.
21:24It floats down and thankfully slots in.
21:28Wait, can you push that that way?
21:30It's a big moment and Mick's relieved when it's locked in place.
21:36Mick's going great.
21:37I love this stuff.
21:38Every day, mate.
21:39Every day.
21:40Keeps me young.
21:41Keeps me fit.
21:43The $5,000 a day steel show rolls on through a second day, then a third and hopefully final day.
21:52But conditions have changed dramatically.
21:56We've been trying to work around the wind for the morning.
21:59Just there, everything a lot slower.
22:01A lot slower of pace.
22:02A bit more careful.
22:03And obviously we've got a bit more implications with being not able to work if it gets too windy.
22:10So around the 10, 11 metres a second mark, we've actually got to stop working.
22:15But the weather's not the only thing casting a pall over the Dover Heights site.
22:20It's becoming physical.
22:23It's becoming real.
22:25As the scale and shape of his creation is becoming more distinct and well past the point of no return,
22:31incredibly, Ed's having second thoughts.
22:34I do have doubts.
22:36I mean, I think it's only normal, it's natural, human, to have those doubts.
22:42Have we given it enough thought?
22:44Have we given it enough time?
22:46Are we rushing it?
22:47This whole exercise was not worth doing unless it's going to be better than what it's replacing.
22:55Would my father, who's no longer with us, be happy with what's being done to the house that he bought many years ago?
23:07I'm not surprised Ed is questioning himself at all.
23:12Ed is a perfectionist and he's obsessed with the tiniest detail.
23:17I think he's a warrior in his soul, but if he can't fight the elements, he fights himself.
23:24He challenges all his decisions.
23:25He wants to make things perfect.
23:28Here comes the night and he doubts.
23:30He has true nightmares about, oh my God, is this good enough?
23:34Did I resolve it well?
23:35Is there a better solution?
23:37And the good thing about him is that he keeps going.
23:41He doesn't stop.
23:42So, um, those self-doubt moments dissolve and in the end the process accrues one layer after another layer and it becomes a great piece of work.
23:58It's been seat of the pants stuff, but thankfully no power lines down, no neighbouring roofs crushed, everyone's safe and the steel is in.
24:09It's been a great rehearsal for the real nail biter ahead.
24:13The arrival, uplift and fitting of tons of super expensive, millimetre perfect, precision made panels of super fragile glass.
24:27Ed's late dad Henry and mum Julie loom large over all he's trying to achieve at Dover Heights.
24:38They worked hard to buy the original house.
24:41And in here will be plants and that's the little garden for the bedroom.
24:46And then Julie, now 100 years old, oversaw the 60s renovation.
24:52Do you think I'm crazy?
24:54No, no, you're not crazy, but...
24:57Ed's keeping Julie up to date with developments.
25:00He's keen for input and why wouldn't he be?
25:03There's so much of their life together in this little patch of Sydney.
25:07He's changing a lot of things.
25:09Everything is, it will look differently.
25:14He thinks it's going to be looking like the opera house.
25:20I wish.
25:21Yeah.
25:22Her biggest concern with the house is that it doesn't go over budget.
25:26If it's a great piece of architecture or not, that's secondary for her.
25:31Do you think you'll like it?
25:33Yeah, why not?
25:35Good.
25:36When Ed worries if the new house is going to be good enough, it's as much about honouring his heritage as it is about forging a future.
25:46I hope Mum's going to like it. I think she'll be proud of her little boy.
25:51Yeah.
25:57Back on site, they're adding a few more degrees of difficulty to the access equation.
26:03The lower roof's going on.
26:05I reckon threading dozens of panes of glass through the new steel superstructure would have been hard enough.
26:13But this is going to shut down a whole bunch of access points and the glass team's really going to have to thread the needle when those expensive panes get here.
26:22Far away from the clank and clamour of the Dover Heights site, in a rural pocket of Mallorca, Spain, Lynn Utzen is working in her whisper quiet studio.
26:37I start with a sketch and then work until that's relatively perfect and the client approves and then I choose the materials and start working in the real scale.
26:55The brief was that there wasn't really a brief.
26:59Ed and Sonia wanted me to do something and left me a free hand.
27:03And we went through different solutions and they, we sort of collaborated about what it should be.
27:13Lynn works with all sorts of media, paint, timber, textiles, even ceramics, often big and bold pieces.
27:21Though not quite to the scale of her dad's major work, more than a million tiles clad the Sydney Opera House.
27:28Lynn's pieces are keenly sought for public and private collections.
27:33In this case, it's marine plywood and then I used a water-based lacquer.
27:40For Ed and Sonia's commission, she's chosen a layered lacquering technique to create a gleaming triptych.
27:46I painted the surface six times so that it's absolutely perfectly smooth lacquer.
27:59It becomes very physical.
28:00It's an organic abstract collage of a feeling of exuberance.
28:10It doesn't really have anything recognizable in terms of nature or topic.
28:16It's just a feeling of joy.
28:20Sonia is Spanish, so we ended up choosing together these colours, which are exuberant and very Spanish.
28:29And it was a sort of beautiful reflection of her Spanish soul.
28:35Lin's three piece work will span to nine square metres.
28:42It's going to be a striking centrepiece basking in the abundant natural light of its glass and steel home taking shape on the other side of the world.
28:50It's always, for me anyway, a blessing to be asked to do a work.
28:59And his house is very interesting.
29:01It'll be beautiful.
29:02And, you know, artists like me, we always work alone.
29:07And so when somebody comes along and says, we love what you do, will you do something for us?
29:14It's a blessing.
29:25Whether it's a blockbuster movie, a hit record, or a Dover Heights crane assignment,
29:30the sequel can be much more difficult than the original.
29:34Ed and the team have waited four months for this fragile consignment.
29:44Some smaller panes have broken in transit.
29:47We're going to come through from that point to this point.
29:51But the challenge now is to get all this expensive precision glass up and in,
29:57without losing any more pieces or any more time in the process.
30:01Ed's facing another long round of looking up and worrying.
30:05Hope he's factored physio into the budget.
30:07That neck is going to be sore.
30:12It's very exciting.
30:13This is, architecture is a performing art.
30:16What?
30:17And this is where we see it at its best.
30:20It doesn't get much better than this.
30:22There are six huge panes, each weighing half a tonne, $12,000 a pop.
30:31Four of these giants will make up the sprawling western window wall.
30:35You're pretty much lifting a gigantic sail that catches the wind.
30:38If it takes off, you're not getting it back.
30:40You've pretty much got a gigantic missile in the air that you need to try and regain control of.
30:44And especially with the size of these panels, we don't really want that happening because they're very heavy.
30:48It's like the world of fortune, isn't it?
30:55It's pretty bad when it starts going.
30:57Once that starts beating, it's quite bad as hell.
31:00Healy there, mate.
31:01Give me another hockey on the gym.
31:03Sonia's brought her positive energy to the big day.
31:18It's amazing to see progress.
31:21It's been very slow for a few weeks.
31:24These things happen on site sometimes.
31:27But today it's like we're moving up a notch.
31:30It's very good.
31:31It does mean a lot getting the glass in.
31:33The glass is a very important part of the project.
31:36And when this is over, then we can breathe a sigh of relief.
31:41Keep that angle.
31:42Keep that angle.
31:48Yep, good to go.
31:49Alright, release, sucker.
31:54On three.
31:55We're just going to try and do short drags.
31:56Don't try and do anything monstrous.
31:58Just short drags.
31:59There we go.
32:00One, two, three.
32:05Okay, hold there.
32:08One, two, three.
32:11Okay, ready?
32:12Just drag across.
32:14That's your tan.
32:16Lean the top in.
32:17Just see how it sits.
32:19Okay, we're in pocket.
32:20We've got three mil packers.
32:21Three mil packers.
32:22Can we get some packers underneath the glass out here, please?
32:24But even with all the care in the world, kid gloves and millimetre moves, it's not enough.
32:32A crack has appeared.
32:33And as small as it looks, it's ruined the pain.
32:40That's a bit of a bummer.
32:43After all that, getting it in, nine guys, tiny crack.
32:47So, it'll stay in for now, keep the place waterproof, but it'll have to be replaced, so it'll come back and replace it.
32:55If Ed's annoyed, he's not showing it.
32:59He's determined to stay cool and focused as the rest of the big pains go in.
33:03One, two, three.
33:15Yeah, we're bang on.
33:18Bang on?
33:19Bang on.
33:20Bang on.
33:22Another giant arrives, but it's chipped on an edge in the process.
33:27So, it's re-lifted, flipped and re-installed.
33:30The blemish is at the bottom and will be hidden behind joinery.
33:36Good job, boys. Good job.
33:38And then, finally, the last piece in the giant puzzle.
33:43It's an epic moment.
33:44This is the fourth panel that's got in today.
33:47And it hasn't been that easy.
33:48It's been a big challenge, actually, with a lot of things, a lot of factors.
33:52But this is the last piece to go in.
33:56You're only about 15 off the head.
33:58Ed has been suffering a bit through the process.
34:03There's been a few sleepless nights, yes, for both of us.
34:08But today, it does make a difference.
34:12You know, we're enclosing the building, and it's a big step forward.
34:16I'm hoping this is going to make it happier.
34:17Beautiful, boys.
34:18It's been, well, I don't know if agonising is the right word, but, yeah, it's been all difficult, challenging, agonising, maybe.
34:42But certainly difficult.
34:45A big, big challenge.
34:47This is no ordinary here.
34:48You know, this is something pushing the boundaries, for sure.
34:53The glasswork in the Dover Heights house feels as highly calibrated as a space telescope.
35:02But when this is your outlook, you want to gather in every glittering speck of it.
35:07And I don't think there are too many better ways of capturing it than with Ed's favourite materials.
35:12The glass and steel that's become emblematic of Lipman Designs and vaulted him into the pantheon of Australian architecture.
35:21Some of those architectural luminaries, including trailblazers in domestic steel and glass,
35:27have a remarkable collective showcase across the harbour in a leafy suburb called Castle Crag.
35:33The co-creation of two visionaries best known for dreaming up our national capital.
35:38Castle Crag was the experiment and the promise of Walter Burley Griffin in 1919,
35:45who, with his wife and partner Marion Marnie Griffin, set out to reimagine the possibilities of living in the Australian landscape.
35:54Here, in this beautiful bushland setting overlooking Sydney Harbour.
35:57Other big names joined in over time.
36:00Harry Seidler, Peter Muller and Neville Grusman.
36:04Even Peter Hall, who finished the Opera House after Jorn Woodson left.
36:09They all added to the Griffin's vision.
36:13But we're here for this relatively modest but inspirational gem by another crack husband and wife team.
36:20This is the Bill and Ruth Lucas glass house, built for their family in 1957, just after the two young adventurous architects were married.
36:33And, nearly 70 years later, it's just had an award-winning restoration by Sydney-based practice Cracknell Lonergan.
36:40And it is just sparkling.
36:46Look at this, it's just, it's weightless.
36:49And the landscape just seems to flow right through.
36:55Bill and Ruth's shelter in nature approach aimed to leave the site as untouched as possible,
37:01maintain in the building the character of the bush, and to provide maximum accommodation with minimum frills or finery.
37:10The whole house is actually really simple.
37:13It's designed on a three by four grid, which means you can kind of plug and play all these different modules.
37:19So it's a very open plan kind of idea.
37:22There's a lot of looseness and adaptability built into the plan.
37:25Actually, once you've done that, then you can actually remove, from in here, the rooms to create a courtyard in the middle, which I'm standing in.
37:32Of course, once I'm here, I can see the beautiful sights sloping away underneath me.
37:37The house doesn't even touch it, it floats over everything.
37:40The other thing that's so nice about all this is you get this cross-ventilation coming through the house very easily, very gently.
37:47And I suppose the idea of circulation is just this little donut of a corridor that sort of circles the interior light well.
37:52Even nature seems to love this idea, so it's working out really well.
37:56But the secret sauce to all of this is the steel columns under here, and there are only four tiny little columns that just touch the ground and elevate this entire platform.
38:07Then you get all this bracing here to make it all stiff so it doesn't wobble around too much in the wind.
38:12Once you've got that strength and structure in here, then the rest is just infill, and that's where all the glass comes from.
38:18And it is looking just brilliant.
38:22The possibilities of steel and glass have continued to evolve and inspire.
38:27Ed's long been a champion of it, and now, with Sonia, he's continuing that storied history of husband and wife partnerships in cutting-edge architecture.
38:37But it's Ed that's putting all the pressure on the project, second-guessing and challenging decisions, because he's such a prominent exponent of this form.
38:45It might be a lightweight structure, but I can totally understand why he might be feeling the weight of history looking over his shoulder.
38:52The white-knuckle, acrobatic phases of Ed and Sonia's house are well and truly over.
39:07But the headaches remain.
39:10The build is running behind.
39:12The prediction was eight months.
39:14It's now closing in on 12.
39:16At least the structure is enclosed and weatherproof.
39:20And the focus and effort now is fixed directly on the interior.
39:23The important thing here is it would be nice if that was flush.
39:28The spaces are taking shape and decisions are flipping on the fly.
39:33A plasterboard ceiling has been ditched for a timber ceiling, and that means Chippy Andy has to install reinforcing to hold the extra weight.
39:41Ed is cracking the whip a little bit.
39:45We're right here in Ed's living room.
39:48It's two storeys up, and to be able to put in the supports for the spotted gum, we've had to build this platform.
39:56It's not the most comfortable platform.
40:00I feel like I'm going to be a hunchback by the end of this job.
40:04It's a bit of a challenge.
40:07The reality is that we're into now the final stages of the job, and the details are very important.
40:13So I don't want to rush this last stage, because I'll be looking at this for the rest of my life.
40:20And I'm probably giving the builders and the subcontractors a lot of grief, because I'm particular.
40:26Even if you want to leave a little gap where the angle is, so there's a couple of mil, even three mil,
40:32we've got space here, that's going to be a board missing there.
40:35It's just a sense of getting it right, doing it properly, and focusing on the job, and it'll be finished when it's finished.
40:43I think eight weeks should be fine.
40:45If it's eight and a half, that's okay.
40:48It might be less, but we'll be here for many, many years to come.
40:52And I say the same thing to clients, don't rush the end of the job.
40:57Get it right, and make sure you're happy with everything.
41:00That's probably a bit radical.
41:05Yeah.
41:06It looks very stained.
41:08Well, it's not.
41:09I don't know.
41:10If there is a lot of them, it will look good.
41:12If there's just that one...
41:13Sonia has been a constant counsel in the process, and she has plenty of influence.
41:18At the very beginning, she convinced Ed to abandon his plans for a big showy home and go with a smaller scale build.
41:26She argued that less is more.
41:29Beautiful.
41:30He wanted to build a two-storey house, and I said, look, we don't really need a two-storey house.
41:36We need a house for us.
41:38We don't need five bedrooms and four bathrooms.
41:43It's just the two of us.
41:44We'll be empty nesters in no time.
41:46So let's reduce, have one single storey, and it costed him months to agree with that idea.
41:54This is Ed's baby.
41:57He's the architect, but I'm an architect myself.
42:00So, of course, I've had a lot of input and a lot to say on every step of the way.
42:04Probably very annoying for him.
42:06But as a result of that, this is, you know, a product that we've created together.
42:11So we're going to paint the pellet black so it sort of disappears.
42:16Sonia's now front and centre in the effort to soften the steel and glass structure with warm, natural finishes,
42:22as the project drives to the finish line.
42:26It's a very emotional moment for us to see this house come together.
42:30And the truth is, until now, this point in the construction,
42:36it hasn't really looked like a house.
42:39So now we really feel we're building our home, and it's a very special moment.
42:45We're building on top of what was here before,
42:48and there's a lot of memories from Ed's family in here.
42:53And I think it's important.
42:55It infuses the building with some soul, and we can feel that.
43:00I think we're going to be happy here.
43:03As a child, I grew up here, and there were a lot of good memories,
43:07some not so good memories as well, some tough times.
43:11But, you know, it's part of my DNA.
43:16So Sonia and I are definitely creating a new future.
43:21And there's a sense that this is a new chapter in our lives,
43:25and the house will be definitely a very important part of that.
43:41So it looks like life might have returned to a semblance of normality
43:50in this little Dover Heights cul-de-sac.
43:53The building crews have left. The cranes are gone.
43:56The neighbours can finally relax.
43:59And hopefully Ed and Sonia can too.
44:01The work is done.
44:03Time to scale the rambling steps
44:05and take a look at the results of this epic production.
44:08I can't wait.
44:10Ed, Sonia, you made it!
44:20Welcome.
44:21This is just beautiful.
44:23You must be feeling, like, so good right now.
44:26We're relieved.
44:27Is it relief?
44:28It's absolute relief.
44:29I know it's been a real journey for you.
44:32It is a physical effort and an emotional strain too,
44:36all the way through.
44:37There's a lot of happiness,
44:38but there's a lot of, yeah.
44:41All bundled up into one.
44:42Yes, absolutely.
44:43And look, two architects, one project.
44:45Are we both speaking to each other still?
44:47We've started talking again.
44:49That's nice to hear.
44:51Now you're enjoying the home.
44:53You're actually talking again.
44:54And, I mean, I'm going to ask you very directly,
44:56do you love it?
44:58Well, of course we love it.
44:59I want to hear the love.
45:00We love it.
45:01We love it.
45:02We love it.
45:03It's a fantastic spot to be.
45:05Yeah.
45:06We have the delivery people, when they come here bringing a pizza,
45:09they stop here, drop the pizza and take pictures of the view.
45:12Yes.
45:13We love it.
45:14It's a fantastic, magical spot.
45:16Yeah.
45:17Well, how could you not love it?
45:20And from every angle out here, particularly as this deceptively understated,
45:24deliberately unassuming creation gradually reveals itself to the lucky visitor.
45:30We actually laboured over that.
45:31Yeah.
45:32What's the entry sequence?
45:33That arrival with the view and then the house.
45:37Yeah.
45:38There's a, there's a promenade.
45:39There's a sequence.
45:40Yes.
45:41That choreography is beautiful.
45:42Yeah.
45:43It's very theatrical, but it's also just very subtle.
45:44Some of the best holidays we've had are those where we trek through nature.
45:51So I think we've recreated this a little bit.
45:53You've got your little trek through the reserve, your little trek through the garden,
45:57and then you're at home, which feels very quiet, but in the middle of nature.
46:01Yes.
46:02It really feels like it's just, just in the canopy of the trees.
46:05It's not a look at me building.
46:07That's what's really nice about it.
46:08Yeah.
46:09It's, it's unpretentious and the connection to nature.
46:12Yeah.
46:13So it's come together and it belongs.
46:15Yeah.
46:16Well, look, I can see the timber kind of calling me from inside there.
46:19Come inside.
46:20Yeah.
46:21I want to have a look.
46:22Lead on.
46:28This is it.
46:29This is it.
46:30Look at this.
46:31This is exceptional.
46:33After all that work, you've brought it all together into this amazing room.
46:38This room that we're in right now is really the public space of the house.
46:42There are lots of little rooms around the edges, bedrooms and bathrooms, but this is the communal.
46:47Yeah.
46:48Piazza, if you like.
46:49There you go.
46:50Of the house.
46:51What an exceptional room this is.
46:53I mean, bang, Lynn's work, Lynn Watson's work.
46:55Yes.
46:56What a wonderful welcome to bring us into the home.
46:59Draw us from the front door through here with all that beautiful colour.
47:02To see that when you walk in the door.
47:04Yeah.
47:05It's amazing.
47:06The size of it, the colour of it.
47:07The relationship between the artwork and the view outside in the room.
47:11Yeah.
47:12But it really feels like it belongs here.
47:15Yeah.
47:16This is a feast for the senses.
47:20Lynn Watson's dazzling collage.
47:23The redolent aroma of spotted gum, top to bottom, evoking the Australian bush.
47:28And that panorama of glass and steel drawing in the very bingeable highlights of a great Australian city.
47:35I can see the precision of the steel that's in here now.
47:40Even the fact that it's painted Harbour Bridge grey.
47:43It's a nod to our wonderful Sydney Harbour Bridge.
47:47Yeah.
47:48Right over there.
47:49Like, peeking over the hill in the distance.
47:50It's very beautiful.
47:51But what I'm really enjoying from being inside here now is seeing the way that the house sort of reframes the view.
47:59It's gone from just being the thing out there.
48:01I'm seeing the long line of the timber here, the line of the steel beams, and the kind of the horizon lines over there.
48:07So it's kind of giving us the layers of the view.
48:09The house is helping us to see it.
48:11There are so many deft moves here.
48:15A transparent fireplace softly articulates the zones within Ed and Sonia's public square.
48:21But in reality, the forum unfolds seamlessly into the neighbouring public spaces.
48:27The kitchen is stunning.
48:29But it's all about simplicity.
48:31Function and necessity over showy trappings.
48:35Where's all the rest of the kitchen palaba?
48:37Where's the butler's pantry?
48:39The second dishwasher.
48:41Where is all that stuff?
48:42We do everything.
48:43Yeah.
48:44So it's modest.
48:45Doing more with less.
48:46Yeah.
48:47No butler's pantry.
48:48No family room.
48:49None of these extravagances.
48:51Yeah.
48:52But it feels good.
48:53Feels so much better.
48:54Yes.
48:55Better.
48:56Yeah.
48:57Virtually softly underscoring the majestic window wall.
49:00That gorgeous credenza.
49:02A silent, singular hovercraft floating above the floor unifying the spaces.
49:08I love the way it brings you a line of sight right from the front door almost.
49:12Snakes it right through here and links the two gardens on either side of the home.
49:16So visually it's the connector.
49:18connector. It's like a beautiful bridge, a beautiful timber bridge. So the way you described
49:22it, it's very romantic and beautiful. But you know the real reason why we put this cabinetry
49:28here is so we didn't see the neighbor's house. So we figured out, we sat in different places
49:36in the room, in different heights to figure out which was the exact size of the credenza
49:41to hide the neighbor's roof and allow the view. Yeah, perfect. It's a very practical
49:47decision. She's a very practical woman. And you can sweep underneath it. There's magical
49:55multifunction everywhere, some of it hidden, waiting to be summoned. This is a sliding
50:02door. It's a sliding wall actually. Yeah. That turns the room into a more intimate dining
50:09space. Look at that. You're right. They're walls. That's not a door. Sonja is the best
50:14room shrinker in the business. That is fantastic. Look at how beautiful the timber is. It's
50:21beautiful timber. It makes the room intimate and it extends that materiality. It's almost
50:28impossible to believe that this home sprung from key structural elements of Ed's childhood
50:33home. And this is our bedroom and study. The humble old bungalow his mum and dad bought
50:43in the 60s and renovated when they were able, living on here in walls and foundations and
50:49aspects of the old layout. How magnificent is it to wake up to that every morning?
50:55Wonderful. Inspiring. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I guess this is where we also get a bit of
51:01a sort of view of the old house. Yeah. Well, this is what is now a study. It used to be
51:07my parents' bedroom. Right. This was my bedroom when I was a boy. And those bathrooms were
51:12bathrooms. Yeah. So we haven't changed that. We've remodelled it. New micro-cement floor
51:16and, you know, nice new linings. But, uh, these spaces were there. We've combined it into
51:22one. I mean, the thing too is, you know, we're in a very sort of fairly highly densely populated
51:28area here. Yet it feels like we really are in a retreat. Yeah. Somehow you've managed to
51:33push the other houses away. You've made this little sanctuary. We've screened them. Ed knows
51:37this side very well. So every inch is carefully curated so we don't see the neighbours, although
51:44they are very, very close. Yeah. Yeah. We don't feel them. We don't see them from here. Yeah.
51:50Planting helps. Although planting creates beautiful spaces inside the house, it also screens the
51:54neighbours. There's almost as much thought in the garden design as the house itself. But like the
52:01house, you don't see all the fretting and fussing and the work that went into it. The results look
52:07effortless. What a triumph.
52:10This is an incredible design. And I think, you know, if anything, the sign of a good home
52:16is how it makes you feel. And I'm feeling pretty comfortable sitting here right now. How are
52:21you feeling about all of this? Well, it makes us feel good. Good to have it finished because
52:28it's been hard. Yeah. But good because it has a very nice vibe and it feels very much like
52:35our space. The standard and the expectation is very high. So how do you achieve what you
52:41imagine? And it's probably impossible to fully achieve it. Yeah. I think we've done a good job
52:46and I think it's never perfect, but we'll continue our evolution here. And no doubt there'll
52:54be some modifications over time. I don't know if there is such a thing as perfection. You
53:00do your best and it's for others to judge. Perfect enough. Perfect enough. Yeah. Let's
53:06talk about the time frame because you initially said eight months going to be done. Yes.
53:12Yeah. That was wishful thinking. About double that, wasn't it?
53:15We've doubled that. It was about double that. Yeah. Why? Well, we had some problems. The
53:20cracked glass is one example. So that was a probably three month delay. You can't start
53:25B until you've completed A. So things got pushed back. At the same time, we didn't want to rush
53:31it. We wanted to get it right. Yeah. What about the budget? One and a half million dollars is
53:37what you told me when we first met. Yep. How'd you go? It went a bit over that. It went
53:43up to about 1.8. Not wildly over that. It was experimentation and learning. We went with
53:50builders that learned with us. If we would have gone with a builder that has done it before,
53:57I can do this. It would have gone faster, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. Not cheaper, but faster.
54:03Yeah. Still, 1.8. That's not a bad price for a beautiful home like this. What does your
54:08mum think? Oh, well, I was showing her some photos last night and she's a pretty harsh critic.
54:13Um, and I was almost expecting her to say, what do you need this for? How much did it cost? But
54:20she looked at the photos and she was, uh, she was impressed. I think she's, uh, she's a proud
54:26mother. Yeah. So, um, that was nice. I think she's happy that we're happy here and that we haven't
54:34overdone it. Well, I mean, it's an incredible achievement, I think, you know, and I think it's
54:39been a really beautiful thing to see inside your process as you've gone through this,
54:43you know, the, the sort of the perspective of two designers as they're working through
54:47a problem or a project like this. One that has all this emotional side to it, which has
54:52been the kind of the unquantifiable amongst all of this beautiful sort of high tech quantifiable
54:57stuff. And the result is just magnificent. Thank you. Beautiful. Well done. Thank you.
55:09Wow. The climb to this sparkling, light-saturated Shangri-La is a little beyond Ed's 100-year-old
55:18mum, Julie, these days. But her impact and that of Ed's late father, Henry, their legacy,
55:24the family life here, is still very present. It's definitely better. But the dreaminess,
55:30like the essence of what was, that is still present. It's very much Ed and Sonya's home
55:39now. But really, it's a home that demands and deserves a much wider audience. Beyond a generational
55:46transformation, a home for the ages. In so many ways, this is Ed's magnum opus, his most intimate
55:57and daring endeavour yet. And the result is just magic. For two perfectionists, they've
56:03delivered nothing short of brilliance. Ed wove the dream, and Sonya breathed life into
56:09it. And the crowning glory, well, mum's given it the nod. And her approval is the gold standard
56:16after all.
56:27你們 are child-saturated month and plenty of inspires carried out the world through and
56:32with each of itsha. And the respect for kalian-saturated New Age Henry. Their push-outs live
56:37slowly. And theFM peu Konami is the end, and the 되ением of realism and a living real bad. And
56:37they're still used as regards to it. And their employees may pass it to the public's
56:39world to Himself. And the care that seamless addition to those with the race-series or
56:43compassion-saac правs and shepherd Посоль- grunds here. And then we are doing something new out
56:43on the road by the Nazis and in charge of devotion. And I gotta give you threeERT on the road of Joel
56:49to accomplish that. By the time I do cash past and made my life, it's time to make sure that, you're on a
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